PACK
by skyfarer
Summary: "The world's gone to the wolves. Lima's gone to the ghettos. And the new alpha at the Dalton School for Werewolves needs a sub." KLAINE. MAJOR AU. OCs, OOC, slight D/s, attempted NON-CON, Language.
1. One Day in the Life of Kurt Hummel

**PACK**

"**The world's gone to the wolves. Lima's gone to the ghettos. And the new alpha at the Dalton School for Werewolves needs a sub." Klaine. MAJOR AU. OCs, OOC, slight D/s themes, attempted NON-CON, Language.**

**Disclaimer**: Glee doesn't belong to me in any way, shape, or form.

**A/N**: This is a really AU fic where most of the Glee characters are werewolves. Since they've grown up in very different circumstances in this universe, I couldn't avoid some OOC, but I hope they're not too unfamiliar. Some characters are dark or villainous in this verse (not Kurt or Blaine). Please be gentle, this is my first fanfic :) Reviews much appreciated!

**Sorry for the lack of Blaine in this chapter. He'll take over the fic soon - this chapter is to set up the world, so some things may still be confusing. I'll try to world-build organically and hopefully things will make more sense later on.

****Second person POVs are only used in excerpts at some chapter beginnings. This is a third-person POV fic.**

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**Prologue**

You were coloring the Valentino in your mom's Vogue when you heard it. The shock of breaking glass - maybe plates, maybe grandma's old ___ma-try-oshka_ dolls judging by your mom's shrieking - veered your marker out the lines. You hadn't done that since _pre-school_, but frantic rubbing only stained your finger pads red like that time mom asked you if you ate her cherry pie and you were so confident because you'd taken such care to clean your mouth and then you stuck out your hand for a pinky promise. Oops.

But mom hadn't stopped screaming. That was weird; dad wasn't even home to yell at. You dropped the markers and crept to the stairs with something like unease uncurling in your gut. The basement door was wide open but you couldn't see anything but the wall because this house was built all crappy, like dad said.

But you could hear it - a thumping. Like the furniture was crashing into the walls. Like a tornado was ripping through, though no one had told you anything about one. Like your heartbeat, now, because that was fear shuddering in the house and in you.

"Mom?...MOM?"

You couldn't make out what she was screaming, but you knew it was bad and you had to help her. You rushed up the stairs in twos and threes and there was the wall and there was the bathroom door and there was the living room and there was something _fucking huge _panting in the middle of it and it was crouched over the body of your mom. A body that was streaked in blood and crying and looking nothing like mom because it was all messed up and bleeding.

_Something huge_. Something snarling. You'd seen one of them before on the news.

You knew it couldn't be real, it didn't even turn up in your nightmares but Fox News said they were everywhere and there it was. Okay. Fuck. You knew you had to charge in and save your mom, find something, anything, to bash its brains out. Yeah it'd eat a nine-year-old boy for breakfast but that was _your mom. _That was your _mom,_ and she was dying.

Your knees were still shaking when it turned around.

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You'd wake up later, much later, with wet clothes and blurry vision and an awful taste in your mouth.

You couldn't feel much. Just a bit numb, like a frozen piece of meat laid out to thaw. You could smell things though, a lot of things. You could smell blood and piss and lingering rain, the musk of damp skin and the hollow of pinecones; then bananas, green ones, old laundry (ew), microwaved plastic, burnt tin, tomato sauce, greasy fast food, sneakers and the streets they ran on. You could hear the buzz of a television turned low, distant cars, distant yelling, the clatter of silverware and plates and running water, footsteps on a metal staircase the floor below, a voice murmuring something like - "pack" - and that was the last, strangely soothing thing you heard before you sank back to sleep.

**Chapter One: A Day in the Life of Kurt Hummel**

The new kid was undeniably gorgeous. Straight, probably (okay, _certainly_, considering Kurt's past record with crushes), but you could never tell with men who paired their Levi's with AQVA pour homme. The jeans could go but there was always room for redemption with Bulgari.

Which was why Kurt was prepared to sacrifice his life for him.

"What is your _problem_, Karofsky?" He huffed - menacingly - and glowered at the huge football player, arms crossed tightly across his chest. This was probably a bad day to wear his new scarf, what with all its restraining and strangling possibilities. "Can't you even give the new kids a single _day _before tormenting them? Or is The Fury bored of us already?"

The neanderthal whirled around from where he'd been hunkering over the new kid, his infamous fist twisting the boy's jacket in a death grip. A slow smile spread over his face. "Oh look, it's the school fag." With a shove into the lockers, he released the kid and rounded on Kurt, who noticed with annoyance that Karofsky had gotten even bigger and bulkier over the summer, rather like a katamari. (Kurt was proud of his own recent four-inch spurt and all, but it did give him the disconcerting ability to empathize with noodles.) "You got a new crush, fag?"

Karofsky thought he had a crush on every single male at school, including Principal Figgins. If Kurt didn't know better, he'd say the bully was paranoid. "Not really. Just a taste for routine - with a side helping of masochism."

"Yeah? And what's that? _Queer_," the bully growled, leaning close enough for Kurt to see his jaw twitching.

It was like homophobes' brains hit a stop sign at single syllables. With a haughty lift of his head, Kurt sighed primly, "I mean, neanderthal, that your customary slushie-ing has been disappointingly unreliable this year. You haven't even greeted me yet with a Lemon-Berry, much less a Blue Blizzard. And my back is horribly free of bruises. You're either losing your edge or cheating on me." With a pout.

Even Karofsky looked a bit surprised. Kurt didn't _talk back_. Most of the time, in fact, Kurt actually had a competent sense of self-preservation beneath the handmade couture (and the glitter, and the pink nail polish). It was probably the fever he'd been running since the weekend in all fairness.

"Okay Hummel, you've gone loco. But don't think that means I'll spare you, _or _your little faggoty friends. You're lucky I gotta impress the new coach so I ain't got the time to smack the punk out of you right now." With a final vague hunkering gesture like a gorilla slamming its fists on the floor, Karofsky stalked away, leaving Kurt staring in open-mouthed surprise at his retreating back.

"Huh. That was brave of you."

He'd forgotten about the new kid, but there he was, leaning casually against the lockers, as if a man-mountain hadn't just crushed him against them after threatening to introduce him to the portapotties out back. Most of Karofsky's victims would've been thoroughly cowed by now, but this one barely looked ruffled. In fact, he was sort of - grinning? Which didn't bode well for the mental state beneath that curly black hair.

"Um. Well, fortune favors the brave and all," Kurt's laugh was shaky in its relief. "Karofsky and I go a looong way back, sadly. He and Azimio pick on almost everyone, I'm just ~blessed~ with extra special attention." He rubbed a sweaty palm on his hips and reminded himself that it didn't matter if this kid had heard him being called fag and queer. "Aren't I lucky."

"So he's always been like that?" Curly-hair shook his head. "What an ass. I'm glad you stood up to him . . . it's just that you're so small, I was pretty frightened for you there. He does seem like a real coward though, you know the type - pick on the easy targets, then back down as soon as people push back." His voice had dropped deep and soft, as if he were comforting a small child.

A _child_. Well Kurt was pretty much the only were south of the north pole who didn't get the boost in strength and speed and all the fun stuff, but he wasn't a quivering little damsel in distress. In fact, wasn't _he _technically the white knight here? Yet that kid was standing there looking so serene and pretending to be frightened for _Kurt _when he couldn't even take care of himself.

That was pure McKinley male for you, the type that'd rather run over their grandmas than admit to fear. Or getting rescued by a gay guy.

But before his tongue could enlighten Mr. Man and quite possibly land him in trouble of the furry secrets variety, Kurt settled for an immaculate raised eyebrow. "Oh? You're not so . . . tall yourself."

The guy had the nerve to laugh like it was no big deal. "You got me there. Hummel, was it? My name's Blaine" - sticking out his hand, and Kurt was so caught off-guard he had to shake it.

"Kurt. Kurt Hummel."

"Cool. Well - I'll be seeing you around, Kurt."

It was a shame such a good-looking grin belonged to so arrogant a man. Kurt bet _Blaine _practiced it in the mirror every day, along with his 'come-hither face' and 'tough guy face' and a 'my dog ate my homework face' and those stupid eyebrow quirks that the jocks thought they were so clever for using as freshmen girl bait. If he were honest, someone like Blaine, good-looking, confident, wouldn't find it terribly hard to achieve a respectable level of popularity at McKinley. Then Karofsky wouldn't bully him any more, because Blaine was, annoyingly, right with that part - guys like Karofsky only picked on those with the scarlet letter stamped on them, whether it was newness or gayness or dorkiness or ugliness. The indefensible.

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"I don't know _why _you still go to that school," Mercedes was still rambling by the time they made it to the food court. "You're stuck learning math and chemistry and they treat you like crap there. Oh and - hello, they hate us? _So _not fierce, Kurt. Panda Express?"

"I'm feeling pizza. I'm also feeling fat, so - hm, might as well go with the garlic broccoli or something." Kurt had to twist quickly to avoid the poke in his ribs. His descent from a bean pole was a running joke between them. They looked like _Gorda y Flaco _off that Mexican channel Santana always had on, just with less botox and hand gesturing. "_Obviously_, Mercedes, high fashion requires math. And chemistry. We have to measure things out and wrap them in periodic tables. And the degree's a requirement for college, you have to prove you can survive torture and meat surprise."

A snort. "College." The girl hummed under her breath as she mused over the pictures of disturbingly glossy food on the menu panel. "Wait. You're serious."

"It'd be nice to have a job."

"Honey, they'd kick you out soon as they find out! They skin us and wear us -"

"- and bitch about us in PETA ads. Those are _totally_ unfounded rumors -"

"But you know they can't be havin' none of us, Kurt." Mercedes sighed and gave him the weary look of someone fighting a losing but obligatory battle with an immovable object. "Whatever. You'll get away with it. 'Talent -"

"- can't be oppressed,'" Kurt finished happily. "I'll take the special with the fried rice, thanks."

"Does Finn know yet?"

The Look was sufficient.

"I'm just sayin', I don't want you wasting time at Guantanamo and not get something outta it, y'know? Finn loves you and all, but he wouldn't drag the pack to New York for you. Hell he wouldn't even let us go to Cincinnati for the Skyline Chili." Mercedes' brow darkened at the memory of so cruel a rejection of Cincinnati's brightest attraction.

Finn was an easygoing alpha, his size dwarfing his temper, but his views on the fleshies were less than positive and Kurt had no doubt he'd flip if he got word of any of his own leaving to live in _their _world. That Kurt was attending one of _their _high schools was bad enough, but it was a safe space - as long as no one knew about the wolf thing - and Finn liked the idea of keeping him out of trouble (Finn always acted as if he'd be snatched any second, as if Kurt weren't already sixteen and a were - ok, a were with less of a corporal endowment than most when the moon was low, but still). Their pack was small but tight-knit and they were lucky enough that they'd carved out a niche in Lima where the larger packs didn't mind them, long as they kept their heads low. Anywhere outside the Midwest, they'd be swallowed up.

Kurt wasn't an idiot. If he was going to leave, he'd have to sneak out under his alpha's nose. "I know, I know. _Puh-leeze_. I'm a _sophomore_, Mercedes. Tom Cruise would out himself as an alien before I graduate at this rate. Anything can happen by then so I'm not going to worry Finn right now if I don't have to." He made a face at his sweet and sour pork. Every time he caught the flu everything tasted like burnt marshmallow.

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Mercedes had dropped the college thing by the time they'd started scouring Macy's half-off racks and Kurt was actually feeling sort of tired, so he ended up sitting by the boots while she shopped, which was pretty depressing. One had to blame it on Macy's recent obsession with Victorian pinks and greys. Sucked the soul right out of you.

He toyed with an ironic set of cat ears he'd picked up at the anime store and watched under half-lidded eyes the salesclerk who'd been shadowing them for the last quarter hour. The salesclerk was a skinny, stern-looking woman with an absurdly long neck who was really, really bad at this whole totally-not-stalking-the-customer business. She'd misplaced several sizes already and had taken up a very hush-hush, pointy-frowny conversation with another clerk.

Had they been to this Macy's recently? Department stores shared data on suspected werewolves but Kurt couldn't remember him or Mercedes shoplifting at the mall - they'd be kicked out at the entrance. Kurt never took anything bigger than a magazine but it was possible some of the smaller stores had found out and reported it to the police and they'd ended up on the registry. Suspected-class, serial offender.

More like Mercedes had been seen with Santana and Puck, the itchy-fingers _extraordinaire_. Kurt made a face. You couldn't really complain about stereotypes when you weren't exactly defying them. He had to be extra careful because Lima was small enough that his name dropped outside their usual ghettos could find its way into the principal's office (and then he'd be in _legal _trouble for concealment and endangerment of other students or something ridiculously Glenn Beck like that) - but some of his packmates had no such qualms. Santana was probably even sympathetic to the ferals.

Puck would rag about the injustice of a store clerk narrowing her eyes at their every move, but then he'd slip a bottle of No. 5 (if he had the taste, which was doubtful). Obviously not all werewolves were thieves or gangsters, but you couldn't blame the fleshies for the stink-eye or the private security when up against a bunch of streetkids who wore human skin but could flatten most grown men - even the little wolfgirls - and run like Lindsay Lohan from a sandwich. They could slip through the cracks of the city with ease, running black-market supply lines for TVs and laptops and drugs. With the moon in ascendancy they'd lose their heads - start petty fights, kill over slights perceived, ransack the restaurant when the steak wasn't cooked to order. Full moon they'd lose their humanity.

It still wasn't fair, though. Kurt wasn't like Mercedes wasn't like Finn wasn't like Puck or Brittany or that homeless guy who sat on their steps and wrote songs about library cards and world peace. He didn't start fights. He finished his homework on time. He gave a crap about things other than food and water and fucking, which was pretty good for any 16-year-old boy. And he always, _always _used his cage on full moon nights, like every other were he knew. Not just because he didn't want a bullet through the head if he got outside, but because if he bit and turned someone like the ferals were always doing, he wouldn't forgive himself. Yeah the petty shoplifting didn't make him feel so glam but they couldn't help it sometimes, not when the suggestion of employing a werewolf made most people reach for their guns and start handing out flyers for the Minutemen. Those people thought they were all terrorists, conspiring to raise a secret army to take over America and the free world, and the scary thing was that THEY ALL LOOK LIKE YOU so you couldn't trust your neighbor or your spouse or your mailman because they were all infiltrating your children's schools and converting your kids into things that shouldn't exist. Things that were an abomination to God. (Which was funny, coming from people who wore overalls.)

Well, Kurt did plan to raise some terror - in the fashion world. You couldn't take the politics people too seriously. Most humans weren't that crazy, and New York was pretty liberal so he figured he just needed to survive McKinley and Lima and escape somehow. The pack was great and he didn't mind other werewolves in general, but werewolves just didn't do fashion. Lima didn't do fashion. (Lima didn't do gay people in general.) Maybe there was a little pack of fashionistas in New York and maybe they all draped themselves in happy gay rainbows or something, he had to hope. _Sorry, Finn, Mercedes, but there is NO way I'm going to finish a Lima loser. _

Mercedes was ready to go by now and following her through the cosmetics section was an exercise in self-restraint. Too much nose-wrinkling would give him a permanent snout - an unforgivable waste of rare beauty - but the collision of so many perfumes was harrowing. (He was proud of who he was, screw what Santana said, but he hated that part about being a werewolf sometimes. If brown were a smell . . .)

He liked the lights though, the bright glass displays, the little mirrors (where he waved back at his stunning visage, like Princess Di obliging the masses), the bourgeois jewelry, the photobrushed models with their wide and open and empty eyes. It wasn't New York, not by a long shot, but it was practically _Marie Claire _compared to where he lived (_Redneck Daily? Small-time Gangbangers Ohio?_).

"Mercedes. Wait." They were near the exit but he dropped back to the Dior stalls. Under the gaze of the stern-faced salesclerk, he dipped his hand into the free samples and took a big handful and took another big handful, and another, and one more, and shoved them one by one into his messenger bag.

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The apartment was in a minor uproar when they got back.

Finn, wrapped like a mummy, blinking open-mouthed at the ears on Kurt's head: "See, _that's _why everyone thinks you're a sub."

"You're not escaping the inquisition, Finn." Hands on the hips, eyebrow arched, neko ears askew - Kurt was more than ready for battle. "You and I both know that _fashion doesn't compromise._ The real question is: how in the world did you manage to get _shanked_? Even Puck's found Jewishness and stayed out of trouble this year."

"I'm fine, I'm fine. It's barely an inch, Lauren just went crazy with the tape," Finn muttered, throwing a not-so-subtle pleading look at Mercedes. "It doesn't even hurt."

"A guy still came at you with _silver_, Finn. He meant business."

"Weres are uptight, okay? We got the new Boss alpha in town, the assembly coming up, whatever - some mutts are getting all worked up and territorial and stuff. I told this guy to back off the Rhodes house for now 'cause of Quinn's heat but he flipped on me." He manfully patted the right side of his abdomen, where a jarringly reddish blot marred the white bandages and pale skin. "Think this is bad - oughta see the other guy."

"Mm-hmm," Santana nodded approvingly from where she was filing her nails. Somehow Finn getting injured translated into 'don't do the dishes'.

"He could go running to his alpha -"

"Who was more than happy to help. Me, that is," Finn grinned. "Don't worry about it, Kurt. No one's dumb enough to get in a pack war right now."

Kurt refrained from observing that "dumb enough" was likely to be Finn's epitaph. "So the Rhodes house is fine then?"

"Nah, we'll play it safe - new alpha, there'll be some new guys running around. We're switching to the Day's Inn off Lincoln."

"Hn. Enjoy the bedbugs. How's Quinn - still in the tub?"

Finn shrugged. "She's fine, we just need to head out by eight." Heats weren't supposed to be too bad (Quinn said it was basically a Viagra overdose, and it was a good thing she wasn't male or her dick would break off after forty hours of joy) but she was barely a year older than Kurt and still unused to them. They were fairly regular though, twice a year like clockwork, so the pack could plan in advance and not have something stupid happen like leave her out in public where the slightest shift in pheromones could alert other packs - or worse yet, leave her at the apartment and draw them there. That didn't stop the heats from being inconvenient - if they didn't have the Rhodes house, they'd be paying for hotels every year with half of them stuck outside to guard - but subs were rare and valuable and Finn cared about Quinn as a person anyways. It wasn't her fault the poachers and the other packs were always after her kind.

With Mercedes gone to check on her in the bathroom, Kurt fussed over the injured alpha some more (who really was milking it, the bastard, Kurt ended up making him a PBJ) before remembering to hand him the stash of perfume samples in his bag. Finn looked at him in surprise - what feminine products _didn't _freak Finn Hudson? - so Kurt rolled his eyes and added, "To throw off Quinn's scent. Trust me, drown her in this before you get out to the car and she'll smell like death and hopelessness. Or Mr Schu's hair."

"'Mr Schu'?"

Kurt shook his head. "Teacher."

"Where are you going?"

Finn could be so clingy sometimes. "Beauty sleep. My skin's protesting the weather."

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He woke up in the middle of the night with the sheets sticky and glued to his legs with sweat. He'd thrown them off his body but they didn't have air conditioning and the night was warm and his fever had apparently gotten worse. Damn.

(What werewolves even got sick, anyways? They were supposed to be immune to everything except silver and rabies. Kurt made a note to browse the internet with more skepticism_._)

Sleep-weary limbs protested the movement but his body badly needed hydration. Judging by the ominous pinching in the back of his skull, Tylenol would be nice too but no one in this household got sick. Except him, obviously.

"Kurt? That you?"

"_Finn_?" He tried to peer through the gloom from the doorway. From the moonlight through the shutters he could make out the murky shapes of the coffee table and the futon, where a large figure was shifting upright. "You came back?"

"Yeah. Left Mike and Puck with Quinn. I kinda needed a nap." The figure stretched, yawning. "Why are you awake?"

"Shamefully, the flu. I'm running a temperature and my head feels like it just survived a Justin Bieber marathon." Padding his way through the piles of clothes and games systems to the kitchen, he groped for the water filter and scowled when it came out empty. Did _anyone _in this household care about hygiene? (He suspected Brittany drank out the toilet sometimes.)

"Sucks." To Kurt's surprise, Finn had gotten up and joined him, leaning his massively oversized frame against the doorway. "You don't smell sick though."

"I _never _smell like anything besides sunshine and roses and rainbow-maned unicorns, Finn."

"You smell nice."

"Coming from the straightest man in Lima? I'm flattered." Kurt inspected his hello kitty mug. Then he paused. Then he turned. "Is this the point where you tell me you sold my Gucci boots to pay for penis enhancement surgery?"

Finn laughed. "No. No, Kurt. I guess, uh . . . I guess we haven't washed out all of Quinn's hormones or whatever yet. Seriously, Febreeze is crap." He slumped down on a chair.

Well. That was awkward. Kurt was aware that a sub in heat didn't just arouse herself but drove the (straight) males around them into a frenzy. The thought of Finn nursing a boner right now ventured into unthinkable territories. Truth to tell Kurt would volunteer to be Karofsky's punching bag before returning to _that _place again, that pathetic little fourteen-year-old place with all that hope and naivete and misplaced longing and gossamer for walls. Thank Gaga that had been crumpled to make way for the freedom of not caring. Of giving up.

He hadn't forgotten what Finn had called him.

"I've got, uh, Advil though. Or I think it's Advil. You said your head hurt, right?" Finn was rummaging around in his pockets. Finn's pockets were magical, like those hats that magicians had that churned out bunnies. Finn's pockets had no bottom and told a story about a dude who collected football cards and ate too much gum. Apparently they now produced little white bottles too.

Kurt arched a brow. "I know you're an aspiring kleptomaniac, Finn, but . . . why do you have Advil on you?"

With a rueful smile, Finn made a vague gesture at his bandaged abdomen.

"Ah. Thanks."

"Don't tell anyone."

Kurt popped two in his mouth and prayed that werewolf metabolisms didn't mess with drugs. Finn must have sneaked the bottle past Santana. She thought that showering with hot water emasculated his alpha-hood. (She thought eating non-pleading creatures emasculated his alpha-hood.) Finn was a constant disappointment to her.

She could think whatever the fuck she wanted. Kurt took a deep breath. "Listen, Finn . . . that assembly next week. I don't think it's a good idea. Practically every wolfman in Lima'll be there -"

"Seriously? What happened to begging me to take you?"

"Lots of available young males. Sounded nice in my head at the time. But if you think about it, it's not like this . . . _'Boss' _alpha really matters to us. It'll be a waste of time and no one's going to notice if you're not there."

"Top dog changes, that's a big deal."

"Well he hasn't changed the cut has he? The last guy could've been Mel Gibson's real hair, for all we saw of him. It's just a party, Finn. And by party, I mean an excuse for a bunch of testosterone hounds to go out and get drunk and start moronic fights over their manhood." Kurt had a habit of tapping his fingers on the rims of drinks when annoyed. "Then the police show up and you end up dodging fat guys with guns. It's hell on your hair."

"Oh, _come on_. Look, Kurt - if you're worried about any fighting, with the gay thing and all - we got your back. And the alpha wouldn't let anyone start anything on his first day. Just don't be too . . ." Finn struggled, ". . out there." He added hastily, "I mean, a lot of guys already think you're a sub. That's seriously dangerous, man. Some of those lowlifes don't take no for an answer."

The gay thing. Leave it to Finn to think of that first. Kurt rubbed his temples. _It's the same damn thing, silly. You don't see the swishing, he doesn't see the knife in his gut._

Finn was already backpedaling his way to the futon. "Trouble starts, we leave, ok? We'll have _fun_, man. Don't be a scaredy cat. Plus Puck's been ragging about this for days, you'll know he'll kill me if I get between him and getting laid." Yawning, he collapsed on the cushions and started snoring with such promptness that Kurt didn't get the chance to very bitchily enlighten him of the ways in which Kurt Hummel was _not _a frightened feline (gesticulating each point with his hello kitty mug, of course), but in which Finn was, in fact, the kind of dense idiot who could see the lines but never the spaces.

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Kurt was in a much better mood when he woke up the next afternoon. Namely, because it was the afternoon. "Oh, shi -"

"You missed school," Tina said helpfully, after he had gotten up and showered and coiffed and sat down to stare at his tea.

His grades were good enough (perfect, in fact) that he could miss a day or two and not suffer for it. He was still feeling feverish though, so it was probably best to drop by McKinley at the end of the school day and get his assignments for the next few days. The thought of going out in public with his pale skin glowing an unappealing shade of tomato made him wince, but he made do with a giant pair of sunglasses and a fairly tame cardigan ensemble that matched the wallpaper in his math classroom. Walking was _so _not fierce but Finn and the other males needed the car in case something happened with Quinn, so he set off through the west end for the bus, avoiding the smaller alleys where disturbing liquids would get on his loafers. This wasn't a real ghetto, there were fleshies living here but it wasn't exactly a gated community either and more than a few patrol cars sat balefully at every other corner. Public transport didn't run until you made it to the tamer areas of the city.

Along the way he tried not to think about Finn. (And the fact that Finn was very likely and enthusiastically engaging in sexual relations with Quinn this instant). Finn handled him like something that could only be touched with tweezers - a baby panda, or Herpes simplex. Then he'd remember that he was supposed to be treating Kurt like a dude, which would inevitably lead to a series of back thumps and unacceptable English that would have turned Kurt off straight men forever were it not for the indulging of his superiority complex. One of these days he'd tell Finn he didn't actually hate him, but he needed the right moment, such as on the alpha's deathbed whereupon Kurt could perform a miracle with his tears.

With his homework sorted and the direness of his flu impressed upon his teachers, Kurt sauntered out the halls of McKinley - Karofsky and Azimio were nowhere in sight, thankfully - and past the parking lot and empty soccer field with the rusty bleachers. The season must not have started yet, if there was no one there. Kurt didn't pay attention to sports if he could help it but sometimes the boys went shirtless, which was nice. (He was quite the expert on David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo, though his expertise pertained more to their abs and unfortunate hair choices than the teams they played for, or what they actually did.)

He didn't notice the man behind him until it was too late.

The blow from behind knocked him down with a sickening crunch. The pavement barely missed his cheek - he'd stopped the fall with his hands through instinct - but seared through the tender flesh of his palms and his knees hurt like crazy and his chest was getting slammed into the ground by the weight of his assailant on top. The fucker had to be _huge_, like a freaking dumptruck. "Ow! What the _hell _- !"

"Damn, fag. Knew something was off about you."

He'd know that voice anywhere.

Dave Fucking Karofsky.

Kurt tried to twist his head around but the man forced it back down with ease. The gravel bit into his skin, smashed his tongue into his teeth, painfully. "Karofsky! _Are you insane -_"

The football player pressed a warning grip against his throat, leaning in so close Kurt could feel the man's breath by his ear, damp and hot and disgusting. "_You're_ the crazy one, Hummel. All this time - I never even suspected. You ain't a fag," he chuckled, leaning back to cock his head like a predator considering its prize. "You're a _girl-bitch_."

"A - a _what_?" Had Karofsky really cracked the loony bin and made off with the goods this time? "Look, Dave - lay off the roids, ok? No one has any idea what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. Gotta keep that pussy fresh for your alpha, right. Lemme guess - he don't like to share?" To Kurt's horror, Karofsky pressed his nose into Kurt's neck and took a long and loud and leisurely sniff, right next to his ear. As if he weren't just _smelling _Kurt, but savoring him like a fine champagne. The fucking neanderthal. "Couldn't believe he let you outside, though. You're not even in full heat yet but I could smell you the instant you walked into McKinley."

"Oh, _Lord _-" Kurt took a deep breath and panicked a little at how insanely hard it was, with the way the man's weight was crushing his lungs and his delicate ribcage. "I'm not a _sub_, Karofsky. Yes, I do happen to be a werewolf. But a normal one - just gay. You've got this all wrong."

How did Karofsky even know about subs, anyway?

He tried to push up an elbow and found that he couldn't even twitch, he was so immobilized. Either Karofsky had _really _eaten his Wheaties for breakfast this summer, or -

It couldn't be.

The man's laugh made the hair on Kurt's skin crawl. "So I'm new and learning. Battin' by instinct. But you sure smell like a sub, 'cuz my dick's been bangin' on about it since the moment you walked in - and I'm no fag," he sneered, with a painful squeeze of the neck to stress his point.

Karofsky's penis didn't bear thinking about. "When did you turn?" Kurt whispered.

"Eh." The man - the werewolf - shrugged. "Over the summer. If I'd known someone as pathetic and lame as you were one, I probably would've rejected it. But," he grinned, and the look made Kurt's stomach curl, "I'm likin' it. I'm stronger. Faster. Way better at football. In fact I'm running with a pretty cool pack right now. . ." - he leaned in -

". . .and I think they'll like you. After I get my fun, of course."

"Karofsky, _don't you dare_," Kurt snarled. This was getting really, really bad and desperation was starting to sink in because the miserably thin fabric of his pants couldn't hide what was most _definitely _an erection, _a very large erection_, pressing on his ass. "My alpha will hunt you down and -!" It was all he could get out before the werewolf clamped a huge hand over his mouth, muzzling him.

"Couldn't care less. Our pack's stronger." Karofsky slid his other hand along the curve of Kurt's back, where the boy's slender waist arched into an ass that Karofsky noted was pleasingly round; like a girl's, except firmer. He should've thought of this earlier, actually - he was never a tits man but asses, yeah, asses got him going and Hummel's fit perfectly in his hand and he wouldn't even have to be gentle like he did with girls, all of whom would bitch and moan if he thrust too hard. He'd never convinced one to let him go anal either, so the thought now was _really _getting him excited.

Yeah that was mostly the pheromones talking, but he could get used to this. Hummel's scent was amazingly hot and heady and from behind he looked like a delicately-framed girl with a tiny waist and a nice, enticing gap between his thighs that was begging for a pounding. He could get behind that, Karofsky thought with a snigger. Fags were always begging for dick; subs were always ready for it. It was just his luck that Hummel was both, the bitch. He pushed the boy's soft cardigan and shirt up to his pits where it bunched like a crumpled bib, exposing skin as pale and smooth and untouched as baby's milk. "Fuck, Hummel -" he growled, burying his face in the small of the boy's back and inhaling. God, the bitch smelled so good. It was almost unnatural, the shockwave of pleasure that shuddered through him and his dick, just from a sniff. How he wanted to bite a line down the boy's spine, mark it with canine teeth, mark him as his . . . but his boner was practically weeping from pain and hunger. "Can't. Fucking. Wait -"

Kurt was dying bit by bit inside. Karofsky's caress was fake-gentle, like a lover, like a knife petting his skin, and it was filthy and disgusting and _wrong_. Everything was wrong. He was trapped under Karofsky's body with the man's baseball bat erection digging between his thighs, damp and feverish with sweat. He was paralyzed, unable to feel his wrists or fingers or heartbeat, breaking at the thought of the pain to come. The violation. The tearing. He was about to lose his first time behind the bleachers of a school he hated to a man he hated even more.

He'd never even had the guts to _dream _about a first time. Kisses. Texting. Keeping a boy's picture in his wallet and sighing with longing every time he looked.

He'd never even held a boy's hand.

If Karofsky had his way, took him back to his pack, flung him out for everyone to take like a whore - or a sub -

Tears stung at his eyes. _I won't cry._ He couldn't cry, not in front of Karofsky. Not even if the man was already so lost in sexual frenzy that Kurt couldn't tell who was whimpering more, he wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him break. He'd endure it, he'd survive it, he'd run. Not back to Finn and the others, no, he wouldn't endanger them - with Karofsky's pack after him no place in Lima would be safe and they already had such a _good _thing here, a real family, a safe home - but he'd run somewhere (_or die trying_) before becoming some pack's whore.

Far off in some distant universe he could feel the cool breeze raising goosebumps on his butt cheeks, the cold metal of a belt buckle casually discarded on his thigh, the rough tap of a calloused finger against a hole that was trembling in protest. Could hear Karofsky crooning something like the crazy rapist bastard he was, the hacking sound of him spitting on a palm, once, twice, the slicking sound of a dick being greased with strokes so measured it was as if he did this every Sunday.

Could hear a voice saying, "Sorry to bother you, Karofsky. Mind if I kill you?"

\\\\\\\\\\\

**Reviews much appreciated! :) I haven't read many Glee AUs before, so I'm curious as to what people think.**


	2. Camille

**PACK**

**"The world's gone to the wolves. Lima's gone to the ghettos. And the new alpha at the Dalton School for Werewolves needs a sub."** Klaine. MAJOR AU. OCs, OOC, slight D/s themes, attempted NON-CON, Language.

**Disclaimer**: Glee doesn't belong to me in any way, shape, or form.

**A/N:** Sooooo many thanks for the feedback! You guys are all super awesome. *bow down* Reviews are like, crack to me. Sweet, heavenly, peanut-buttery crack. And if there are any questions I'll try to answer them, as long as nothing is spoiled.

This chapter was originally the first half of chapter two, but both halves were getting too long so now they've been turned into a chapter each. So the ending to this chappie might be a bit strange, sorry! It'll be in chapter four that the main plot/conceit starts kicking into gear.

Warnings in advance that Dom!Blaine is somewhat cold here (I played up the more repressed, stiff, super-serious parts of his canon personality), but I hope that makes more sense later on.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

You were Marguerite in her boudoir, bare-shouldered, unmoved, numb in a white gown of silk and petal, hands stumbling for a book, any book, that you would not read. The man's father had pleaded, and your heart had pleaded, and only love had won.

You were Greta Garbo, playing Marguerite, bare-shouldered, unmoved, in a dressing chair of cream and ivy, poised without, fluttering within, a hummingbird of marblestone. Curls saying you were waiting for a man, eyes saying you were waiting for nothing at all.

You were the camera watching Greta, watching Marguerite, with shutters wide open. The light at your back. The crowd at your feet. Hush.

In the room above, they were still arguing.

_- around guns! How could you -_

- thought I could spend some time with him. I - never see him -

Because you don't _want _to spend time with him. You're always watching football, or - or -

_I do_! Just - not - tea parties or dolls or - or dress up, for chrissake. How am I supposed to -

You're his father. Let him lead.

That's - the problem - you let him do whatever the hell he wants -

He's different from other kids. He's _precocious_. All his teachers say so. He's -

- _A boy_, Elizabeth, you can't just - dress him in skirts - let everyone make fun of the kid -

So _hunting_? Hunting's your solution? What the hell's the problem then!

You were still staring at the wall when they paused. The lamp was pulling long shadows out from your face and smearing them on the walls like a bratty preschooler, dabbing something gross. Something _macabre_. You rolled the word around in your mouth and it tasted like sawdust but you liked the way it stuck to your gums, the way it caught in your throat. You knew the word because you were precocious.

_I just don't want him to suffer later. In middle school - high school -_

The weird thing about suffering, was, everyone could cause it, but no one could share it. There was this kid in your homeroom who the other kids shrieked over, especially the girls, and Danny Mills maybe, but mostly everyone. The kid, Danny Mills would point out in a very loud Grown-Up voice, had greasy hair and smudgy fingers and was wearing the _same _shirt_ yet again_, which was even more gross because he'd get snot all over his sleeves every time he wiped his nose, which was all the time. Secretly you agreed, and then you felt like crap because it was bullying and bullies were losers, like dad said. Danny Mills was a loser. (It was just that, one time, you'd stayed behind to help the teachers make Joseph's Technicolored Dreamcoat (you were the best sewer at your school), and you looked out the window and saw a figure standing by himself on the steps, scuffing his sneakers, swinging his body on the rails with his right arm, then his left. When you were out at eight Danny was still there and the knowledge that he was a loser didn't make you feel so good anymore.)

You couldn't share the rabbit's suffering because you didn't know anything about dying, but you shrieked and beat your dad's legs with your fists anyways. Tantrums always got you things, but this time it didn't. It couldn't. Your dad tried to cheer you up with jokes about dinner but it just made you feel bad for him too. There was something sad and heavy in your chest that you couldn't talk about, couldn't find the words to.

See, suffering was everyone's own thing. Your thing. Your dad's thing. (And your mom's thing. And Danny Mills' thing. Kinda like the planet models that were in your science class, floating around in their orbits.) Everyone floated around in their own orbit, unable to touch, unwilling to leave. You didn't know why but a lot of things made you sad the way they did no one else, and the things that made you happy didn't make anyone else.

Like: That time you were so pleased with the yellow boa and polka dot sundresses that Sandy passed down to you when she'd finally grown too big for them. You'd made up your own fashion show. You were striking a Marilyn pose, hips jutting out, lips more poised than pouting - and then you saw your dad in the mirror. You should've said something, but no one did. Instead you watched his back get smaller and smaller as he went back up the steps. Back through the well-worn halls, back to the room he never left. Watched him sink in his armchair, turn on the tv, turn up the volume, over and over again, and wait for the shouting and cheering from the Buckeyes game to drown out the silence.

**Chapter Two: Camille**

Karofsky's jerk of surprise almost pushed his dick through. It was Kurt's instinctive body-flinch that saved him. With the goal so close in his sights, Karofsky's focus had condensed, sharpened to a single, rapier's point - and now that point cracked.

"Motherf***er! _You fucking _-!"

"Actually, my name's Blaine." Ludicrously mild, even good-humored. As if this amused him, this _merry fuckin' day_; oh and, wasn't the weather nice? "But if you don't mind, I'll skip the pleasantries."

It was coming from somewhere around the bleachers behind him, above. Kurt tried to twist his head to look and found it terribly disorienting even though Karofsky's grip on his jaw had slacked for the moment, leaving his neck aching in relief for small mercies. The sky was painfully bright.

To his left there was a soft thud, like a cat's landing.

"We don't have much time, so – well, let's get this over with. You . . . might want to pull up your pants."

Karofsky's head snapped in the intruder's direction. Beneath him Kurt could feel the instant he relaxed, the tension draining from those linebacker shoulders almost in a rush. Could feel the grin as the werewolf leaned back on heavyset thighs, the curl of lips flashing canine teeth. "You again. Whatcha doing here, new kid."

New kid. The name snagged - a floating strand, a fleeting memory - and Kurt realized who it was. Curly hair. Yesterday.

_Oh, fuck._ As if it weren't enough to simply (ha!) get raped, now he had a wannabe rescuer who was about to stroll into a suicide by three hundred pounds of highly enraged, All-American wolf. A wolf that had just been _cockblocked _from taking a sub in heat. Kurt couldn't deny that he was pretty fucking grateful for the interruption - he'd been prepared, in his mind, but you couldn't really prepare, just huddle inside over the soft flesh of your belly and pray most of the walls stayed standing - but no fleshie could possibly help. Not on their own, at least. He could only hope that this Blaine wasn't stupid enough to show up without calling the police first.

"I didn't call the police," Blaine said.

(A breathless laugh surged, snapped in Kurt's throat.)

"Then get lost." Impatience was nudging back in Karofsky's voice. His erection was still pressed against Kurt's exposed thighs, unabashed, unflagging all this time; a bitter, unwanted weight. "Or_ get in line_." If the words suggested different, the tone made it clear: he had no intention of sharing.

"Where I come from," said the new kid, slowly, as if feeling out unfamiliar words, "We duel alone. No interferences. Let the sub go."

_Duel_?

The sharp bark that ripped from Karofsky's throat was torn between a wheeze and a laugh. "Fuck, I don't know what the hell you smokin', kid," the werewolf chortled, shaking his head in an exaggerated show of disbelief. His massive body didn't budge. "But that's some funny shit. You wanna – what, _duel _me? You mean, like, _fight? me_?"

"I prefer not to," was the dry reply. "I'd prefer to simply kill you. But a duel's fairer, and it yields the same results."

That set off another round of barely-contained snickering. Kurt didn't know whether to join him or cry, he was so dazed. In the last few minutes a thick fog of _what-the-fucks _had descended on him. A big black hole of _what-the-fuck-are-you-DOING_, swallowing his thoughts. Stuporing his tongue. Populating the fertile _gardin à la française_ of his mind with teletubbies. (_So who's been on the cray-cray, tonight_!

in a Jay Leno voice, for crap's sake, a _Jay Leno_.) What brought him out was, the sensation, a feeling that wouldn't go away: he was cold. Shivering, in fact. A faint but persistent breeze was stroking his naked stomach and brushing thighs that were dewy with sweat. And that was because where was once the grimy unwanted heat of sweat and arousal and bodies flush against each other, now was only absent space, empty air: Karofsky's boner had softened. The werewolf's focus had fled. There was a crazy bastard with a death wish begging for attention.

The laughter, finally, tapered. With mocking gentleness, a huge bearlike hand patted Kurt's cheek.

"He one of your pack, Kurt? You spreadin' for him too?" At Kurt's recoil: "Aw, don't be like that. He's cute. I can't wait to mess with that pretty face already." Then the were was slowly, horrifyingly, buckling his jeans, getting up.

"Let him go, Karofsky." Kurt's voice was so hoarse. "He's obviously mentally defective. Not even you can beat up a retard."

Karofsky dismissed him with a shrug. "Hey, they can take a warning or two. It's a good life lesson." He took his time stretching in a casual, extravagant display that suggested a well-nourished musculature beneath the baggy Letterman jacket. The change must have cured him of his old chubbiness; though not, Kurt noted sourly, his temper, his cruelty, or his premature balding.

"You weren't," he rasped, "this way before." His legs were folding shut with the clumsy instinct of a newborn colt.

"Maybe it's the wolf." Karofsky's response was mild. After a pause, he shook his head as if to brush off stray leaf-bits, or to clear it. "Seriously? Don't pretend you know me, Hummel." Then he was reaching down to drag Kurt several inches off the pavement by the gray cardigan that had scrunched up around his collarbone.

"You. Don't. Move." Punctuating each word with a meaty finger.

As if Kurt could outrun him. As if Kurt could outrun any were. It was nine years of frustration he had to swallow back down his throat.

But if Blaine could distract him -

In the attic of his mind, something rose, fluttered. The first impulse was hope.

The second was something like shame. This _Blaine _might really be another werewolf like Karofsky seemed to think he was, but he was still half the football player's size. If he really were a fellow were then it was probably Kurt's fault that he was even here, enticed to delusion; the pheromones of heat could _do _things to men, even to the nice guys who were more likely to espouse the benefits of yoga and third-age feminism than grab for the nearest hole every time they popped a boner. Near Quinn's heat, he'd seen other males in the pack suddenly start at each others' throats over the remote, or challenge Finn at the dinner table with plastic forks in flights of bravado. There'd be a classmate's blood on his hands if Kurt couldn't get help.

(It was just that - Blaine had _seen _him.

- like this - )

Kurt closed his eyes.

The navy trousers were rough against his skin when he pulled them up. The boxers with them. Fingers still numb and ghostly from blood deprivation fumbled, cursed the metal clasp. He forced his upper body up and bit his lip at the sudden stream of fall wind that skittered across his back, across bare skin scratched tender and raw by asphalt. Then he shoved down the crumpled shirt and cardi - too carelessly, almost in a fit of anger - and that was worse. Fuck. _Breathe, Kurt_.

Covered, now, but not enough. Not enough to warm him. Not enough to breathe blood back into dead legs, and _run for it_. Shout for help. Get the fuck away from horny mutts, _forever_, if he could help it. Because he was beginning to realize that this - this fever, flu, whatever - really was the first tentative budding of his heat, a seed that had lain dormant for sixteen years until it could pick the absolute worst moment to throw a surprise party. _Hip hip. Hooray._

_Aw, Kurt. Aren't you happy with your gift? _

When he opened his eyes, the scene was almost romantic: straight out of _American Beauty_, plastic bags and all, or the inane freshman poetry of some postmodern hipster who'd only ever lived in Ohio, and never gone higher than weed. The September sun was casting a sort of wan reddish glow to the trashcans. The litter. The pavement, cracked in places by tufts of weed and grass and neglect. The yellowed walls, graffiti-ed, that graced the back of McKinley with ironic haikus and impolite intimations about Principal Figgins and the sexual habits of certain cheerleaders; its real heart.

There was a fence to climb, in front. There was the soccer field, in the back. If he thought he could outrun Karofsky.

The new kid was standing in the shadow of the bleachers, his face too hidden to discern anything beyond the sweep of dark curls clinging close to pale cheekbones. He held himself like a lean street busker, waiting, favoring one side as if missing the familiar weight of an old guitar. His hands hung loosely at the sides of dark denim jeans that looked a little long for him. They were probably of the same height, or maybe he was even shorter than Kurt; their eyes had matched too easily, yesterday. Karofsky, cracking his knuckles in a gesture he probably thought was way cool thanks to generations of lazy Hollywood hacks, hunkered over him like The Hulk.

Karofsky probably lived for these moments. Karofsky was the type of guy who preferred it when his victim wore heels, and stood a foot shorter.

This was just insane.

"Look. Blaine, right?"

Curly Hair shifted, a nearly imperceptible yield in gravity.

Kurt gave a loud sigh. Let it hang in the air. Held a slender hand up to the sunlight, studied the nails. "Can I just say, you're being ridiculously rude _Blaine_. You can't just _barge in_ and interrupt us. Ever heard of this little thing called knocking?"

"I thought -" Blaine began.

"You thought wrong. Karofsky and I have an _understanding_. Ok? _Now shoo_."

"It doesn't look like -"

"I'm a masochist," Kurt said.

Blaine quieted.

"Don't tell. Now can you just _please_, for chrissake, _just - leave_?"

Keeping the hysteria from his voice was harder than he'd hoped. But - he'd succeeded. There was a moment that followed that stretched terribly long - where Blaine seemed to weigh the advice, reluctant but unable to find a reply - and then, thankfully, to turn -

- _and smash his fist in Karofsky's jaw_, because suddenly the werewolf was down, howling, clutching it in shock with both hands.

It was a burst of violence no one could have expected. It was a blow to Kurt's system, unprepared; snatching his breath, stumbling his feet.

It was a move so fast, he hadn't even seen the blur.

"I'm not caught up on my kinks," Blaine was saying. "But I'm not too shabby with my left." He was looking at Karofsky.

"_You - !_" Came the snarl. Outrage sloughed off the werewolf in waves. Fingers callused but cautious touched a chin that was slowly darkening with dying veins. They jerked away as if scalded. "Oh, _you're going to get it now, you fucking faggot _-"

"Get up," Blaine said.

Karofsky's leap was wild: the charge of a linebacker immodest of his physical gifts, or of a wolf wounded and half-blind in anger. The intent was to crush the smaller man through the most obvious path: sheer mass and inertia. Haul him to the ground, where there was no way Blaine could get up.

Except - Blaine wasn't there. Or rather, he was behind him - slamming an elbow into his back, seizing momentum over raw naked strength, sending the bigger man sprawling to the pavement in a graceless heap. Stepping aside in one neat, unhurried move, with a nonchalance born of negligence. Or confidence.

The crunch of bones meeting asphalt shuddered through Kurt.

Karofsky was kneeling on the ground holding his wrist, yowling something unintelligible. Pain and fury mingled in his shout. Then he shut up, abruptly. The thick wrist lifted, twisted, gingerly but on its own; no damage had been done, save the baring of weakness.

His jaw, squared and reddish, flexed – once, twice. His tongue pushed around his cheeks, feeling the teeth. His expression rearranged itself; as if the pieces had been jolted and were now falling in a new, unfamiliar order.

His gaze, when he looked up, held wariness.

"Pretty boy. You're not half bad." The words were light but Karofsky's grin was mirthless. "So who's your pack? Who d'ya run with?"

"Get up," Blaine said.

Kurt could see the prominent vein that split Karofsky's neck bulging as he stood. The red of his precious Letterman jacket was scratched in places, here and there, carelessly. With that humbling, brought about with such humiliating insouciance, the air had shifted. Not to a place of surprised relief, no, but an even deeper unease.

Blaine had scored the first point. This insult could not be overlooked.

Yet Karofsky didn't flip like a frenzied bull, desperate to gore some flesh and dye horns red in isolated streets. This time, with a composure Kurt had not expected from such an exemplar of recent Cro-Magnon ancestry, he didn't charge, or even advance. Instead the position he assumed was like Russell Crowe in _Cinderella Man_, a prizefighter, maybe less drunk, maybe less Irish - fists held up, shoulders swaying, weight shifting restlessly from leg to leg, back to front and back. "Okay. You wanna play. All right. All right, come on - let's see your best shot." The challenge rushed out eager, panting, but serious.

Blaine, lean, steady as a lamppost, watched him for a moment without reply.

Then: "okay" –

– and the breath that Kurt didn't know he'd been holding all this time expelled in a rush. Without bothering to raise his guard, Blaine stepped close - or must have, Kurt couldn't follow - because it was still Karofsky who lunged first, spying the chance -

And it was Karofsky who stumbled, balance swept, arms grasping the air. In that same instant he pivoted around and swung at the man who'd taken up a position several paces behind him, hands still held at his sides, impassive – but he might as well have been groping for a fickle breeze. With steps so light they appeared almost weightless, Blaine simply – tilted – like a dreidel on a kitestring – and it was a fleeting after-image the first fist went through. Then the follow-up. Then the next, and this time Blaine seized the arm.

Kurt thought, I'm not the only one who can't follow his movement.

This was something, utterly, inhuman. Blaine looked as if he could barely be bothered, as if he were trying to tickle-fight a puppy while doing his math homework and side-eying _Tyra _at the same time (ok, that was Kurt - from first impressions Blaine was probably more of a Bear Grylls man). The dark curls crowning his head like an olive wreath had hardly ruffled out of position. His feet hadn't conceded more than five or six paces; circular ones, regaining their original stance.

His eyes had yet to leave Karofsky this whole time. His mouth was a flat line set in stone.

Opposite him, Karofsky, so much bigger, so much more mass to swing and miss and gamble away its own force, was gasping at the end of that exchange. He'd worn himself out. When he shook his head, sweat flew off like water from a dog's back.

He turned to Kurt, who stepped back in surprise, and said, "Not bad, Hummel. Got yourself an alpha here."

Then he added: "Hope he doesn't find out how bad _I tore you, you fucking slut_."

Kurt's mouth opened, but had no chance to reply. There was a sound - horrible, awful - like the crack of a gun - and then he saw it, the white jacket sleeve bent at an impossible, monstrous angle -

"_What the _- "

- Karofsky was still staring at it, mouth agape, too dumbfounded to even register the pain -

There was not only speed that separated them. This was not a fair fight. This was, like Kurt had predicted, a swift massacre. But the one doing it, the one leaving his opponent humiliated in the dirt, bloody, bruised, a piece of meat, was not Karofsky.

"We should just end this now," someone was saying. Blaine - all this time his voice had stayed so even. So preternaturally calm. He was still standing there leaning casually on the back leg, head cocked slightly to the right, measuring the opponent before him, weighing his threat, finding it worthless. Behind him his hand was reaching for something under his white sportsjacket.

When Kurt saw what it was, the cry tore unbidden from this throat.

"_STOP_!"

He'd already leapt up. Blaine turned, hesitated, caught off guard at this intrusion from the most unexpected quarter - and that stutter gave Kurt the faintest sliver of time to knock it out of his hands. It skidded across the pavement - once, twice, loud as an anvil's heartbeat - and sat there, an ugly, blackish thing.

"_Run_!"

Karofsky looked at him.

Ears roaring, heart strangling his chest: "_I said, RUN_!"

It was like a huge gasp poured into him in that instant. Karofsky's head jerked, eyes widened - looked at Blaine, looked at the gun, twisted into something unreadable - and then he was scrambling up, arms flailing, and running for the field.

Silence.

It was in that lull where the two of them just stood there and watched him go that time slowed . . . unwound . . .

. . . plucked from the sky a different, higher register; a frequency without color, or sound, or warmth. The chill was in the bones of his feet. The tips of his fingers, the farthest reaches of his skull. Breathe and he would see it before him: obscuring the shadows, the litter, the leaves, the yellowed plaster, the fence that filtered a quiet sunlight. All echoes of a distant drummer.

Beyond the vanishing tumble of fleeing footsteps, the world was falling, mute, into his heartbeat.

It was relentless, that urge to curl within himself. To burrow down in the deep, and howl. But he wouldn't – couldn't – move. There was something in his chest and it was voiceless and screaming and it could never be allowed to get out. He hated Karofsky, he truly did, the dirt-breather had tried to _rape _him – but he hadn't wanted – hadn't even thought of – death. Dying.

Hurting.

Watching.

Those kinds of things. He closed the shutters.

When the world became clearer and the sky became lighter his legs were still quivering, slightly. That was not surprising. That was the heady spike of so much adrenaline rinsing out of him, out through his toes and into the cracked asphalt of a miserable little town that just never ended for him. He rubbed his palms against them and the grime and sweat smeared the soft scratchy linen of his trousers.

That was something else though. That warm wetness on his lips, pressing into his mouth. That was the taste of something salty and bitter – and deeply unwanted –

(you swore)

But then Blaine spoke.

"Well _he's_ not coming back anytime soon."

"_You - !_" The bubble pierced. In the next breath Kurt found himself rounding on the crazy bastard, the crazy, trigger-happy, superhumanly fast bastard who was just standing there with nothing in his face. "How could you - _a gun -_ you were going to _shoot him_ -"

"You shouldn't have stopped me," the man said. He was already striding forward to where the gleaming thing lay on the pavement.

"And let you kill him?" Kurt gaped at his back. The wind felt cold on his cheek. He brushed it with the back of his hand. "What are you, some kinda -"

"I'm not." The reply was cool. "It's not what you think." He was wiping the gun on his jeans.

Kurt couldn't help the step forward. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you're some kind of -"

"I can assure you I'm not -"

"- psychotic - _murdering _-"

"_I'm not_!" The vehemence - coming from a man who'd only been so composed - actually shocked Kurt into stumbling a step back, hand flying to his mouth.

Blaine was breathing harshly. He'd spun around, but immediately dropped his gaze. The lean planes of his jacket couldn't hide the rise and fall of his chest; nor the tautness in arms suddenly gone rigid.

A shadow flit across his face. For a moment, it said: Kurt wasn't the only one shocked.

The moment vanished.

"I'm not."

Kurt watched him swallow. Saw how the sharp lines of his shoulders, running down to tensed hands, tracing long angular fingers, trembled - resisted - and finally, helplessly, relaxed. Then Blaine was straightening his jacket with a neat and familiar calm, as if he had given nothing away that was essential, but a small slip in footing.

"I'm not a murderer, Kurt. This isn't a real gun," holding out the black thing as if offering it to Kurt, who only grimaced. "They're tranqs."

The skepticism must have showed on Kurt's face. Blaine slid it back in his jeans, and turned to him again. "Look, I needed to knock him out and get him to the police. I couldn't risk letting him get back to his pack, or –"

"You said you wanted to kill him."

"I – " Blaine stopped. His jaw moved. His eyes, which Kurt could see now were a startling tawny gold, flicked up to the sky. "Just – listen to me. I'm not really a student at McKinley -"

"You don't say." Deadpan.

". . . I had a mission. It involved Karofsky. That was why I was tracking him earlier. After I saw . . . . you and him – I changed it, and screwed it up. That's my fault. But I never planned on killing him."

"Wait. Hold up. _Mission_? Oh that's just _glorious_. What are you, the furry mafia?" With a scornful laugh teetering on the tip of his tongue – but as the words came out they formed, Kurt discovered, a disturbingly well-fitting suggestion.

It was not quite a circumstance he thought would ever arise in his sixteen years on Lima, Earth. There was, for one, the gun; lethal or not. People didn't just walk around with tranq guns unless they happened to be particularly gung-ho zookeepers or professional date rapists.

Then there was the fighting skill he'd witnessed, for another. That was just so . . . _absurd _that it must've been the result of years of training by legions of uptight blacksuits, creepy scientists, government machinations and a distant father. (Like many other things, this was learned from _Dark Angel_). Karofsky was no pushover, everyone at McKinley knew that, but he'd been exposed as pure fodder here, on his own grounds. The most basic and physical. Kurt had seen Finn fight before too and Finn fought well, a raw, rumbler's style, more experienced than Kurt liked, and physically blessed even for an alpha; but it was easy to tell that his speed and fluidity and economy of movement came nowhere close to this man, who'd moved like a fencer, silk on steel, with terse strikes and deliberate grace.

_I'd prefer_, he'd said, _to simply kill you_.

"What? No." The man who called himself 'Blaine' looked almost confused. He had a strong jaw, but a young face. A boy's face. Then he shook his head and released a small, unexpected laugh, which made him look even less like the Godfather and more like the teenager from yesterday; but its timbre was, to Kurt's mind, somewhat pained.

Blue eyes narrowed. A slim finger began to tap on his lips.

"So. In New York - Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss. Prada sunglasses. But for the sophisticated _arrondissements _of Lima, Ohio - only windbreakers and last year's Levi's will do."

"Kurt, I'm not a mobster." (But the hands flew to the jeans, self-conscious.)

"Then why were you planning on killing him?"

"Because –" Blaine stopped when he realized he'd been had. Then he leveled a look at Kurt that was not, surprisingly, obviously homicidal.

"Look, I'll explain everything later. It's a long story and we don't have the time right now. I don't think you've reached your full heat yet, but you're close and we've got to get you out of here. How long has your fever been going on?"

He was authoritative. He was a were, and a male, and Kurt remembered this for the first time.

The finger stilled over his mouth.

Blaine, in a quieter voice: "I'm staying at a hotel right now. I can buy you another room there, while you're in your heat."

The offer was immediately suspicious. Honestly, what was a guy this young doing in a hotel? Unless he really were a hitman sent on a mission to stalk Dave Karofsky, which would be the most mind-boggling thing to happen to Lima since the white people came.

Kurt paused; rewinded.

There were several mystery doors to open here, each plastered with a Vogue cover.

Behind the first was the optimistic suggestion that Blaine really was your friendly neighborhood superhero, albeit a rather unimaginative one in a tracksuit and an incredibly lame cover as a high school student in a small yet criminal town. He closed this because Blaine seemed neither friendly nor neighborly, nor were werewolves usually on the conventional side of the law; and because Gemma Ward's forehead made him squirm a little.

Behind the second was the warning that this was a man who, having vanquished the previous challenger, had won a prize, and wished to claim it at his leisure. From what Kurt knew of werewolf politics, this made an uneasy amount of sense. Quinn's comfortable standing within their pack was an anomaly: she and Finn and several of the others had grown up together as friends forged by internal as much as external forces, and Finn himself was . . . unconventional for an alpha (spineless in Santana's own words, but most of hers were not worth the spit it took to say them). In the larger, more conventional packs with their own social structures, subs were supposed to be well in the gutters. Or even on the outside, drifting at the edge like strays leashed to their alpha.

To their alpha's beds, that is, though not confined to them. In fact – and this made Kurt's stomach vaguely bulimic – according to online lore, they were supposedly available to the _whole pack_, like sex slaves in one of those creepy fundamentalist, inbred cults. (_The whole pack_! It was hard to imagine holding hands with even one boy, much less . . . well, several. It couldn't possibly be – comfortable. Or hygienic.)

So that was a lot worse than harems or concubinage or any of those other old human customs that celebrated male sluttiness, probably because packs were made more of wolves than men. Because too many of his kind were beastly animals that existed to support Sarah Palin's career (both the hunting and the political), subs were protected neither by pack law nor moral standards nor some higher conscience. The most they could hope for was to be prized as an expression of their alpha's dominance, which was yet another cringe-inducing example of wolvish logic about the seriousness of the size of one's dick. That was why Finn had gotten so nervous when rumors whispered that one of the larger Akron packs had seen the passing of their last sub: the rewards, subject to negotiation, had started with more zeros than they saw in a year.

It was all stirrup-pants levels of barbaric. His unwilling body could bring this "Blaine" either money or prestige. The counter was that the man could've simply shot him with the tranqs and carried him off, which he hadn't done yet (alright, there was still time for that). So Blaine wanted him willing, for some reason.

The hard way, Kurt thought, or the easy way.

Then there was the heat, which made things even worse. Made them more – _immediate_. More in focus. It meant that Blaine would want to satisfy himself first in the uncomplicated, masculine sense of the word, before bearing him back like a caveman sharing a successful hunt. There would be no difference between him and Karofsky save a smoother face, and a preference for clean sheets over asphalt.

Kurt bit his lip.

Yet . . . strangely enough . . . so far his heat hadn't affected the other man at all. He hadn't tripped over himself to help Kurt up, just for a touch. He hadn't wandered close to his space, in the hopes of catching a scent. He hadn't let his gaze even glance much less linger over Kurt's body, despite what was bared for so long – too long – before.

Kurt rubbed his arms. Maybe Blaine was a Kinsey zero, or just pitifully impotent. But was it really possible that the one werewolf in Lima who happened to rescue him would also be suffering from a case of incurable erectile dysfunction? Kurt's luck was the sort that tended to preserve his virginity, but even this was a bit of a stretch.

What he did know was that not all rapists were like Karofsky, Neanderthals whose only M.O. was the bash to the head. Some hunters preferred another kind of hunt. And Blaine's tone was far too gentle, and his face too handsome, like he convinced underage boys to go back to hotels with him all the time.

Underage boys he'd just rescued. Kurt made a face; turned it over in his head. If this were Finn the kid would be skipping back home with a bag of Doritos, a free Buckeyes shirt, and a new hatred for Disney songs.

But this was not Finn. This was someone with "missions", guns, unknown makers.

This was someone to be held at arm's length, with a handkerchief.

The problem was – there was nowhere else to go. That was a pretty big freaking problem. A Kardashian-_derriere _kind of problem. He had no money, but he couldn't stay outside for long. The risk of poachers and other weres being drawn to his scent was too high, and the consequences . . . well, they were only rumors, for all he knew, but he couldn't take that chance. There was only the apartment, but he couldn't go back to it – (_maybe not ever_) – not with what was likely a hurt and angry and vengeful Karofsky on the loose. His scent could be covered, with the small sacrifice of smelling like his Spanish teacher for the rest of his life – but if Karofsky and his unknown pack ever stumbled on him with Finn and Quinn and the others, all of them were finished. Especially Finn, the idiot, because he'd try to fight.

There really was no other choice. He kept his voice haughty, the eyes cool. "Why should I trust you?"

"You don't have a choice," Blaine said.

Not only was the man an untrustworthy criminal cyborg-assassin, he was an _exasperating _untrustworthy criminal cyborg-assassin.

"I know it looks . . . sudden. But the hotel will have other people there. If I try anything you don't like, you can shout for help." The hint of a smile was gone. "Kurt, we need to go."

"I won't be any more pliable," Kurt said, "if you use my name."

Blaine's mouth didn't twitch. "Okay," he said, after a moment had passed.

Kurt wasn't done though, for some reason. He didn't even know what he wanted to say, it was just that he wanted to say it. What filter he had in his mind didn't apply below.

"Karofsky . . . He –"

He hesitated, unsure of his footing. Waved a hand vaguely, helplessly, in the direction of the soccer field. ". . . He wasn't like this – before. Still a total dick, yes, and a bully – but not a total . . . _monster_. I mean, he was juvie, and now he's like, forty years without parole."

He pushed on: "It has to be the Change. He got it over the summer. It seems like it practically – well, _mutated _him."

"Most Change for the worse," Blaine said.

There was something about the way he said it. Kurt searched for it in his face. It was fruitless, of course, and it felt rather like spearfishing in Lake Placid from the height of a helicopter.

"So . . . he's way more beastly and dangerous now. Okay. I'm well aware of that. I just don't think it's . . . wise or _socially appropriate_ to go around waving a gun. Tranqs or not." Kurt crossed his arms, shifted his feet. "People will get the wrong idea."

"I know." Blaine was watching the field. "It's just for protection, in case we need it. Don't worry, I'm not going to whip it out every other corner."

There was nothing else to stall with.

"All right, then. Lead the way, James Bond." With a hefty roll of the eyes. "Oh and – fair warning. Try anything, and I'm told I scream like Whitney Houston. On a bad day."

He made a grand gesture for the other man to lead, a superlatively gay flourish of the wrist. Blaine didn't see it since he was already moving ahead, but Kurt allowed himself to be led anyways. His legs were still heavy. His neck was still sore. There was nowhere else to go, and as he followed him out it felt uncomfortably like an invisible leash.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"_No_. Absolutely not. I knew you were a deplorable boor, but to sink to this - "

"It's either this or White Castle." The Audi shut down with a click and a purr. "I'm not happy about it either, but we're not heading straight to the hotel with you smelling like this. It's not safe."

Blaine had yet to look at him since they'd entered the car. If this was what he was plotting, well – he probably didn't dare.

From the moment they drove out of McKinley, the man had brought up and held to the stubborn notion that Kurt's heat-scent made a trail that other werewolves would track to their hotel. (Like an irresistible line of crack, Kurt had suggested, which didn't even tug out the faintest smile.) Besides bringing up the disturbing image of every wolf in Lima congregating downtown to lay siege to their building, that meant that they had to stop somewhere and find a way to cover it. But instead of offering to drive to the mall and chivalrously pay for Kurt's Chanel and Cartier, his gentlemanly companion had the inspired suggestion of transforming him into the finest of high dining experiences.

"McDonald's."

"Yes."

". . . Whew! Not bad, Blaine. For a second there, I thought you were humorless."

". . . No. Really, I think McDonald's is our best bet."

". . ."

"We have to blend in. That's the whole point. The thing about McDonald's is the fact that everyone who enters McDonald's comes out _smelling like McDonald's_." Blaine paused. "So that's everyone in Lima."

"The mall, Blaine. _The mall._ I can pick up some Givenchy there and come out smelling like a human being rather than a Happy Meal." Kurt folded his arms over his seatbelt. If it was an argument Blaine wanted . . . well, Kurt was already arranging his chess pieces.

"It's over forty-five minutes away. That's too far."

"I can wait."

"I can't."

Kurt opened his mouth. Closed it. Blaine was staring straight ahead, where the knuckles of his hands were clenched white around the wheel.

So he wasn't unaffected.

The urge to look – down was not hard to resist. The pine hovering outside his window had turned unbearably interesting. Caught between the aggressively bright lights of the McDonald's in front of them and the tiny enclosure of a car that had suddenly become deeply awkward, Kurt halted, still holding his piece; looked again at the chessboard, at the mess it'd become.

The temptation to nibble his nails was strong. He sunk deeper in his seat. Picked words. Discarded them. It was like choosing between Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus, he thought morosely; whoever won, humanity lost.

But he had his _hair _on the line, not to mention years of consistent and rigorous exfoliation. So it was only after much protest and cursing of Blaine's future generations and chances of hair preservation that he found himself dragged inside the golden arches - _abandon all hope, ye who enter here_ - and into the men's restrooms, which were thankfully empty (because there was nothing sketchy about two men entering the restroom together to play with their food). Blaine disappeared for a moment, leaving the sharp order to stay, and returned with several paper bags translucent with grease and bulging with what appeared to be mounds of glistening french fries, several Big & Tasty's, a dozen Big Macs, and the slow and irreversible decline of Western civilization.

He also returned with more tribute: a pair of faded baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and a windbreaker of some unmentionable green shade that ought to have been arrested for either public obscenity or inciting euthanasia.

Kurt helpfully pointed this out to him.

Blaine, because he was an evil Mafioso cyborg with a vendetta against clothing, made some sounds that implied that he would like Kurt Hummel to dump his fashion-friendly outfit in a McDonald's restroom in order to put on some clothes he happened to have in his car trunk in order to blind little children.

Kurt had moral standards.

"This. Is. _Disgusting_, Blaine or whatever-your-real-name-is. Not only do you wish me to smell like an obesity timebomb, clearly you want me to _look _like an obesity timebomb. One that was born in West Virginia."

"Your clothes already have your scent all over them. You'll be much safer if you change. And you'll barely be outside the car, it's like two steps from the parking lot to the hotel." Blaine thrust the items at him with the urgency of a man faced with a toddler on the verge of bawling. He had the habit of plowing through to his point without even the courtesy to be struck by one's wit.

He even pulled away, the bastard, before Kurt could shove it all back.

"This is an insult to my _dignity_, Blaine. _My dignity_! You happen to be in clear violation of the Geneva Convention." The countertop wasn't big enough to hold both the food and the clothes, so with a huff he set down the latter. (The counter was probably hideously germy, but so were the clothes.) Then he shot Blaine a look. "Though I suppose that doesn't matter to someone who dresses like a 1970s Soviet housewife."

Those dark brows had the gall to raise an innocent fraction.

"Don't you _dare _look amused. This is – my hair – and all that _grease _. . . it's – UGH!" Kurt threw his hands up in the air. "How do you even come up with these things? What is it, the CIA? 'Torture on a Budget' 101?"

"Two steps. No will notice, ok?" With the briefest quirk of the lips.

Kurt placed his hands on his hips. "Oh you _are _hard to break down, Mr Blaine. That's what you get for being top of the class, I suppose. Well, guess what – I'm not doing it! You'll have to bring out the _waterboards _before I step out in public –"

"Just – just put it on, ok? Seriously, it's for your own safety."

Kurt muttered something about where Blaine could stick his safety. (This was actually, he thought with some cheer, very Finn, with the sighing coming next – which was good – because it meant that he would soon give up under all the haranguing, and the prospect of more of it – )

"Put it on. Then we can go back, and you can sulk in your room."

Kurt snorted. "And what of the lovely _eau de_ grease and pasteurized cow bladder? I thought I was supposed to be repulsing blind people too."

"Yes. You will. Drive them to tears, and everything. But change first, and I'll dump your old clothes out back." Blaine had the patience of a man who'd likely experienced little siblings. A herd of them.

Kurt rolled his eyes, flicked them up to the ceiling. It was dim and yellowish. "Ha! Make me."

Blaine reached for the t-shirt.

"_Don't you dare_ –"

He couldn't help himself. He wasn't thinking. In the next instant he made a grab for the shirt –pushed Blaine back, lightly, instinctively, with his other hand – and found it caught in a hard grip.

He'd forgotten.

They stared at each other.

It was as unyielding as iron. He could see how it could deliver a strong hook. Break a man's arm.

Up close, Blaine's eyes were clear pools of amber.

Kurt swallowed.

Then he was being released, sharply, as if the touch burned him – and Blaine was jerking back, faltering, pulling his hands away in sharp arcs.

"I – "

The air was not – healthy. It was difficult to breath. Words were hard to form.

Kurt took a step back.

Blaine's gaze slid past him. He had already regained his position. He had done this with a natural grace. He was holding his palms up, and his face blank. And he was saying, with a slight, curt nod to show there was no anger:

"I'm sorry. That was my fault, it's a reflex."

How could he be so calm, when Kurt's pulse was still racing?

Fear, Kurt thought.

One of us gets assaulted, while the other assaults.

One of us flicks a limp wrist, while the other crushes them.

One of us is a sub, and the other –

"I won't do it again," Blaine was saying. Quietly spoken, but the words carried in this restroom's small chamber. The light was dim and his fingers were elegant and long, like a musician's.

They had been callused, on his wrist.

A throat cleared. "I'll be waiting for you outside." Then Blaine was striding past him without giving him a second glance, or the chance to reply. Kurt was left staring at the mirror, wide-eyed, looking at himself, looking at the shutting door, looking at the arm still cradling his wrist, which couldn't move, yet didn't hurt. The yellow light cast weak shadows on the soft young contours of his face.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Cont'd in Chapter Three...

**A/N:** Whew, glad that's over with! I hate writing action, and I'm terrible at it. It's good practice for me but generating tension and making things exciting is, like, not my thing yet – it just ends up feeling like nothing important happens *lol*

Don't worry, Blaine doesn't actually have bad/undapper fashion sense. :P


End file.
